


To Keep in One's Heart

by Becky_Blue_Eyes



Category: The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Hopeful Ending, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Loss of Identity, Panic Attacks, Sad, This Is The Way, feelings of guilt and shame
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-05
Updated: 2021-02-05
Packaged: 2021-03-17 11:01:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,547
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29224374
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Becky_Blue_Eyes/pseuds/Becky_Blue_Eyes
Summary: Din’s hair and face are the only things he got to keep of his parents. His face in particular was the one thing he got to keep for himself—no other living being had seen it since the day he became a Mandalorian, since the day he buried his parents in his heart.And yet to save his son he had to lose his face to the enemy, to strangers, to people who aren’t his son. The one thing he got to keep, he cannot even give to his ad’ika because now it is tainted. No longer his.And his hair keeps getting in his eyes and he cannot stand it because the enemy saw his hair too, saw the very last of Din’s father when Din can’t even remember his name—!The scissors are behind the fresher mirror. They are made for cutting gauze, but they will have to do.Or, the story behind why Din’s hair is suddenly shorter between Chapter 15 and 16.Warning: contains implicit self-harm.
Relationships: Din Djarin & Grogu | Baby Yoda
Comments: 6
Kudos: 56





	To Keep in One's Heart

**Author's Note:**

> buir: parent
> 
> ad'ika: child
> 
> dar'manda: a state of not being Mandalorian - not an outsider, but one who has lost their heritage, and so their identity and his soul - regarded with absolute dread by most traditionally-minded Mandalorians

Boba’s fresher is small. A sonic shower stall, a mirror over a water sink, the toilet crammed in a corner, and just enough space between the three for Din to lock himself inside and tear off his helmet. He sucks in a breath, then turns on the shower. The low hum of the sonic waves is loud enough to stifle the sound of his heart pounding in his temples, of how he can’t get enough air. This way Cara won’t worry, she worries too much. She ought to worry about—

Din digs the heels of his palms into his eyes. They have the coordinates to Gideon’s ship. He will not fail his son. Isn’t it the duty of all fathers to move and remake the universe for the sake of their children? Isn’t that the Way? But he broke his creed. Din looks down at the helmet on the floor and flinches away from his distorted reflection. He looks so tiny, so insignificant in the glare of his visor. As he should be. He broke the creed. He turned his back on the Way.

He is not a Mandalorian anymore, he can’t be, and yet he had no choice if he is to save his son, which is what a Mandalorian must do. Din doesn’t know whether to laugh or to scream.

His hands fist in his hair. It’s rather long, it’s always been like this ever since he was deemed old enough to groom himself. The same texture of the curls, the same color so stark against his trembling fingers. But it’s different now. It’s…it’s disgusting. He is disgusting. He took off his helmet! And he put it back on again afterward!

He sucks in another breath, and his chest vibrates with something raw and painful. Mortification curdles in his blood. Is, is he about to start crying? Here, in Boba’s fresher because the Razor Crest’s fresher is now a powder heap of incinerated scrap? The Armorer would be so ashamed of what he’s become, a sniveling coward _dar’manda_. After all the pain Din put his covert through in trying to protect his child, all the deaths and destruction, he has abandoned them. Abandoned all Mandalorians. He is nobody and no one—

The face in the mirror crumples and Din despises it. He hates the familiar shape of that nose, that jaw, those eyebrows. His father’s chin and his mother’s eyes.

They are dead and this face is all he has left of them and he cannot bear the sight of it!

He holds in the obscene urge to weep. Din’s hair and face are the only things he got to keep of his parents. His face in particular was the one thing he got to keep for himself—no other living being had seen it since the day he became a Mandalorian, since the day he buried his parents in his heart.

And yet to save his son he had to lose his face to the enemy, to strangers, to people who aren’t his son. The one thing he got to keep, he cannot even give to his _ad’ika_ because now it is tainted. Ruined. No longer his. A face fit for only _dar’manda_. Scum. Failure.

How can he be a father to his son now? “Children are the best of those who raised them.” That’s what the Armorer said about the foundlings in the covert. But Din is a failure. He is nothing good, nothing at all to be proud of. And knowing this, knowing that he is all that remains of his parents and his mentors, and that he brings _shame_ to them…he can only hope that Grogu will forgive him for everything he is not. He is not a protector, he is not a good guardian, he is nothing, less than nothing. His son is in the hands of a monster and it is his fault for not saving him! Worthless!

And his hair keeps getting in his eyes and he cannot stand it because the enemy saw his hair too, saw the very last of Din’s father when Din can’t even remember his name—!

There are scissors are behind the fresher mirror. They are made for cutting gauze, but they will have to do.

Din fists a clump of hair and shears it off without thinking. Severed curls fall into the sink and itch at his collar, and Din’s heart squeezes. First his heart, then his chest, then his entire body is one pinprick of agony pulsating to the sound of the sonic waves vibrating against Slave I’s hull. No going back now, there is nothing for Din to return to because he’s turned his back on the Way.

So be it.

He cuts, and cuts, and the sharp sound of the scissors slicing through his father’s hair ramps up his heart rate. His eyes cloud over and he bites his lip until he can see. Get rid of it, the empty place where his soul should be screams. Get rid of it! He doesn’t deserve it! He deserves nothing!

And his arm, still mottled with bruises from where the pirate broke his shoddy Imperial armor, it spasms. His hand slips and the scissors cut down, down his opposite wrist and snagging against his elbow. Din gasps and everything goes shock still. So clear. He can see the motes of dust unsettled in the fresher, the little vibrations of the mirror, the blood welling on his lip where he bit through the skin in shock.

Shock. Shock from what? Din drops the scissors and they clatter soundlessly on the ground. He holds his forearm up to the fluorescent light and ah. Ah. There is bacta spray and gauze behind the mirror too, and he puts himself back together. He does it without thinking, as methodical as cleaning his blasters. He washes the scissors too, and all his hair down the drain until nothing remains. All is silent again save the low hum oscillating through his bones.

Din trembles.

It didn’t even hurt that much, why is he shaking? Why is…why is he…he looks up in the mirror and his hair is so short now. Shorter than his father’s was on the day he died. But his eyes are red, just like his mother’s.

He backs away until his back is to the wall, and sinks to the floor. There in the corner his helmet still gazes hollow and cold and haunted up at him. Grogu only knows his father’s helmet. But Din can’t wear it again, can he? Will his son be afraid of his face?

The idea of scaring his son, his _ad’ika_ who he abandoned the Way for, it is too much. Din holds his face in his hands and weeps.

He cries and it is a soft broken sound, after decades of never letting out the roiling pain gathered deep in his chest. Even when the sonic shower timer runs out and the blanketing hum ends, the fresher is so quiet. A dim memory of childhood, where he was still holding together the pieces of himself after his parents death and his mentor—his savior, his covert _buir_ —held him in his arms and let Din wail. No helmet, no shame, just this terrible grief now ripping Din apart, and his new father holding him close and telling him everything was going to be alright, for that was the Way.

Parents doing everything they must for their children, _buir_ loving their _ad’ika_ above all else. To love someone, to keep them in one’s heart, that is the Way, isn’t it? Can even a shameful _dar’manda_ follow that Way?

If Din had known he would break his creed before he took Grogu as his child, would he have done it anyway?

Din sits there for a long time. When he finally rises to his feet, his body aches and trembles still, and his hands are shaky when he fits his helmet back on.

He will get his son back. He will do everything he must for Grogu, he will destroy himself a thousand times over if he must. Even if he had known the day they met that Din would lose himself, he would’ve taken Grogu anyway. That this the only Way he could have ever taken, from the moment his son held his hand and looked up at him with such large brown eyes filled with trust.

Hair grows back. Skin knits itself together. Beskar can be reforged. All the rest can be taken away and Din will continue on as he always does. But Grogu needs his father, and Din needs his son. That is all that matters now, his creed and covert be damned.

Before he turns off the fresher lights and returns to the scrutiny of his friends, he catches a last glimpse of himself in the mirror. The helm of the Mandalore, no longer hollow and cold but fit with purpose. Din keeps his parents in his face, and his people in his armor. Even if he doesn’t deserve it, he keeps them all in his heart regardless.

His heart aches and Din squeezes his eyes shut. Then he shuts off the lights and quietly closes the door behind him.

**Author's Note:**

> Y’all ever just get possessed by the Spirit of Angst? I swear one day I shall write soft dad!Din being happy with his son, it’ll happen!


End file.
